How can the cross be a symbol of life?!

EASTER….. we are told that this is the most important celebration of the Church’s year, but it can sometimes be hard to grasp exactly why.

I am not sure that I fully understood the impact of Jesus’ death and resurrection upon me, personally, until I had thought about the implications of humanity’s original rejection of God. From the time of man's rejection of God onwards, humanity was effectively ‘locked out’ of heaven and all those who died went to 'hell'. In the Old Testament 'hell' was a realm not of punishment but of all the deceased, and to say that “one descended into hell” meant simply that one had died. We must try and imagine what this place might have been like. It was probably a place of no hope and of darkness, a godless place from which there was no apparent escape. Just pause for a moment now and try to imagine how you might feel if you knew that you were shut out of heaven and condemned to eternal darkness. This is an horrendous thought and one which would make the prospect of our own death rather frightening. This would have been our fate had Jesus not intervened.

Why did Jesus have to die such a gruesome death?

He died the death that the ugliness and awfulness of our sin and the sin of humanity deserves! When Jesus hung in tortured agony on the cross, he was carrying the weight of your sins and mine. Weighed down as he was, what were his words? “Father, forgive them!” (Luke 23:34) ... forgive all those who have hurt me or who will ever hurt me … FORGIVE THEM! His thoughts, even then, were not for himself, but for us - you and me. He took all our sin and shame upon himself in order to take them and their power over our lives down into the depths of hell where they belong. “Father, Father ... why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15:34) he cried out as he took on our sins and therefore felt the full force, pain and anguish of separation from God, the separation that only sin can bring, and the separation which would have been ours if not for Jesus.

Where did he go after he died?

He went to hell, to the realm of the dead. I can remember as a child being really afraid of the pitch black: that awful feeling of being disorientated and desperate for even the smallest chink of light. If hell was like this then the emergence into this torturous darkness of a figure of great light, bringing news that darkness and captivity were over must have been overwhelmingly wonderful. The beautiful Christ figure of Perfect Truth, Patience, Goodness, Generosity, Kindness, Mercy, Light & Love entered into hell in order to lead those God-fearing and faithful characters out of darkness and into eternal bliss and light. Can you imagine what that must have been like?

“Christ went down into the depths of death so that the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Henceforth the risen Christ holds the keys of Death and Hades” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 635)

Jesus’ descent into the realm of death was to achieve a number of things:

 to overcome - for all time - the division between God and man and therefore also the power of sin and death;

 to take his message of freedom and salvation to all those who had died before him and who were languishing in this place of death, waiting to be delivered;

 to convince us that he, too, was human and that he understands how hard it is to die and to suffer any form of anguish

But what about the Resurrection?

To grasp the full impact of his resurrection, it is important to try and imagine the reality of Jesus' death. Jesus, the all-powerful Son of the Creator, was dead. The brutalised and tortured body of the Son of the great “I Am” of all eternity (John 8:58) lay stone cold. How easy it must have been for his friends to think that that was that, the person they thought was all-powerful and the Son of God perhaps wasn’t really what he appeared to be. He was dead wasn’t he? He could have saved himself, but didn’t.

Despite being in the realm of no hope, of death and darkness, Jesus was brought fully back to life both in body and spirit - he was resurrected. We can have absolute faith that this happened, because his friends were united in giving witness through their Gospel accounts of their own personal encounters with the risen Jesus.

His resurrection established victory and sovereignty over the power of death forever, and Heaven was opened up for all those who were to follow him. By this victory there was unleashed a power so great and so omnipotent that there is no power on earth - and never will be - that can ever defeat it. What is this power? It is the power of LIFE, a being at one with God. It is an extraordinary fact that this power is the same power that was given to us through the Holy Spirit at our Baptism. Since our Baptism we have carried with us the flame of eternal life; the flame of God's Spirit; we have already entered into eternity through this gift. This truth of faith can do so much for us! If we really believe in the omnipotence of God in our life we should be asking ourselves a) what is there to fear, and b) how do I respond to it and cooperate with it? Through the power of the Resurrection we have the promise of an eternal life spent in his glorious presence, and we can be sure that this will become a reality for us when we have done our best for him. Jesus, Perfect Good, in rising up, has opened up the way for us to follow him. He has blazed a trail for us into eternal life. If this had not taken place, there would be no hope for us at all: death would be death, the end, eternal darkness. We would still be languishing in the darkness of sin and unforgiven sin, with no hope of anything better.

Through Jesus' death and resurrection we are truly and fully alive, the power of sin in our lives has been vanquished, we have nothing to fear and everything to hope for!

Finally, let me offer you just one last thought. There is a very important aspect of His descent into hell that tends to get overlooked. Jesus’ descent into hell reminds us that we not only meet Jesus in the good and wonderful aspects of our life but, since he has ventured into the realm of darkness, we are now also able to meet him in our sad moments. He went down into hell in order that humanity might meet him there, in the awful moments of our lives. His descent has ensured that he can relate to our every misery and that, in all our sadnesses, we might still have the opportunity to encounter him and, through that encounter, be encouraged, strengthened and healed. Jesus, and his power to overcome, is to be found everywhere, even in the darkest areas of our lives and experience.

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began..... He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve.... ‘I am your God, who for your sake have become your son....I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead’. (Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday)

Arise and shine like the sun; the brightness of his presence will be with you! (Isaiah 60:1)